VA workers up, David Denig-Chakroff down

UP: VA workers. Nurses, doctors and dentists at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison vote to join the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 federal workers. Madison was one of the nation's only VA hospitals without unionized health-care professionals. The hospital's nonprofessional employees have been union members for decades.

DOWN: David Denig-Chakroff. The embattled head of Madison's Water Utility bows to pressure and announces plans to resign as of Sept. 21. Denig-Chakroff has been under fire for spending $140,000 on a consultant without city council approval, among other things. He will get a $130,596 buyout of the remaining four years of his contract, which one city alder calls "a small settlement."